World News Quick Take

Agencies

MALAYSIA

Six divers go missing

Search teams were yesterday looking for six scuba divers who went missing a day earlier off a resort island after apparently failing to resurface, a maritime official said. The group, including a diver from Singapore, one from China and four Malaysians, disappeared after going diving off Tioman Island on the east coast on Saturday, an official with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency said. Only one person with the group, whose members were aged between 25 and 33 and which included two women, resurfaced after the dive, he said. Three boats and eight navy divers are involved in the search.

CROATIA

Bus crash kills eight Czechs

At least eight Czech tourists were killed and 44 injured when a bus crashed and overturned on a major highway in the country on Saturday, police said. The accident happened at about 4am, about 200km south of Zagreb, on a highway connecting the capital with the central Adriatic coastal city of Split, according to a police statement. State TV said the bus crashed through metal barriers in the middle of the highway and overturned in the opposite lane near a tunnel. State TV quoted eyewitnesses as saying the bus started “swaying” moments before the crash, suggesting the driver apparently lost control after he fell asleep. Photographs from the scene showed the bus’s twisted metal remains on its side, with seven dead passengers — covered with white sheets — lying on the pavement. State TV said a child was among the dead and the eighth fatality was discovered in the wreckage.

NORWAY

Far-right extremists rally

Police say about 40 far-right radicals have held a peaceful rally to protest what they call the “Islamization of Norway and Europe.” The demonstration in the southwestern city of Stavanger was held on Saturday by the Norwegian Defense League, an anti-Islam organization closely associated with the English Defence League. Saturday’s demonstration opposed a recent parliamentary decision to amend the country’s constitution to separate the state from the church. Police spokesman Henning Andersen said there were no arrests during the two-hour rally.

GREECE

Gay pride rally attacked

Police say about 50 people threw eggs and plastic bottles of water at about 400 people holding a gay pride parade in the northern city of Thessaloniki. Police moved in to restrict the attackers on Saturday, but no injuries were reported. In recent days, Anthimos, the senior Greek Orthodox cleric in Thessaloniki, had publicly criticized the planned gay pride parade. Anthimos, who only uses one name, is known for outspoken speeches.

ITALY

Migrants found dead on ferry

Two would-be immigrants were found dead on a ferry that arrived in the port of Ancona from Greece on Saturday and a third was in a coma, media reported. The daily Corriere della Sera said in its online edition that 18 migrants hid under trucks and buses on the Superfast ferry and suffered from the extreme heat inside the hull. ANSA news agency said the migrants were inside a Hungarian truck and died of asphyxiation. Two drivers were arrested, the agency added. There were conflicting reports about the migrants’ origins, with the Corriere saying they were from Pakistan and ANSA reporting they came from Afghanistan. On Tuesday, seven migrants went missing after their boat capsized off the coast.

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